BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS-III

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A REPORTER AT LARGE about Haiti after the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier. By the end of his 15-year rule, Jean-Claude and his wife had become the ultimate bourgeois, the consummate arrivistes, ready to sell the country to the highest bidder. Tells about his attempts to lure foreign investors from the U.S. Tells about the blatant corruption of the regime, including cocaine trafficking. "Haitians have been undemocratic not because they are inherently Fascist but because they are dishonest, "Marc Bazin, a Presidential candidate, told writer."The whole bloody business of repression, torture and killing was developed to stay in office, in order to make money."The country has always been a "kleptocracy." The elite occupy the powerful positions in the government bureaucracy, running the import and export firms, investing in the assembly industries--and paying very few taxes. During Jean-Claude's rule, the number of government employees doubled. Many public servants never come to work at all; many receive several checks, made out either in their own names or in the names of dead people-"zombie" checks. Another level of corruption is hidden in the inflated prices that all Haitians pay for products. Tells about voodoo after the fall of the Duvaliers & how Christian influences are driving it out. Tells how Leslie F. Manigat came to power two years after the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, and how he was later driven out in a failed coup attempt against a powerful general, Henri Namphy, who was himself deposed in favor of Gen. Prosper Avril.